The Lord of the Rings: 'ship of Fools
by Roses on Raindrops
Summary: There really should be a law against sending college girls to Middle Earth, especially when one is an opera singer and both have a M.E. obsession, because things get screwed up in the hilarious kind of way. Ch 9 up
1. Killer barely legal geisha vampires

(A/N: Please allow me to introduce us: We are Roses on Raindrops and –Hey you in the back! Eyes on me!– we are "ladies" of wealth and taste…sort of. I'm Sangrita, "the creative one" and "the mad one", respectively, and I'm getting sick of talking. So fasten your seatbelts! It's going to be a bumpy collab!)

People -and by people I mean my best friends- absolutely love knocking on my door, ringing my cell phone, entering my room or going through my stuff at the exact moment that I wish they wouldn't. I can't explain why. Maybe they get some sick sort of charge out of it? I have no idea, but I wish it would stop, and the current knocking at my door was really irritating me. 

Severely. 

I mean the kind of irritation that, if irritation had a physical form, I would choke it slowly to death while wearing a pleasantly enthused smile. 

What's so bad about a friend knocking on your door? You tell me, after you've just settled yourself down, kneeling in about twelve different silky robes behind a low table with a pot of tea, a ridiculously elaborate wig on your head, outrageously dramatic geisha makeup that you've just put on and a CD of Japanese music to get you in what so many performers call "The Zone".

And then your caring friend knocks at the door. Your caring friend that you knew was going to be around sooner or later, anyway, but that's beside the point. Your caring friend knocks at the door and you know you're going to have to somehow manage to make your legs work again after being knelt on, try to avoid slipping on the many layers of silk you've somehow fit around yourself, return to a standing position without knocking over the insanely low table and go answer the door without the ridiculous wig falling off.

Yeah. 

"Rita! What's taking you so long! You're the one who asked me to come over here, so I came and now you can't even answer the door?!"

Against my better judgment, I opened the door. I'm so courteous it kills me, sometimes.

"Oh my God. What are you doing now?" My friend Jesse demanded, looking up and down my geisha costume with the sort of look that said she didn't know whether to laugh or slap me with my own fan. 

"Well, I _was_ getting ready to start working on this role I'm learning, but I figured I might as well come answer the door since The Jess was standing out there, and everything." 

"Working on a role?"

"Madama Butterfly." 

She nodded, being used to it, and figured that as long as I didn't get _too _into the role, like falling for a much older Naval officer, marrying him, having his child and killing myself all for the sake of art, I should be fine. 

"But of course, you're not going to work on that role now that I'm here are you?"  
  


I shook my head, mimicking one of the "false alarms" from the movie Labyrinth: "Oh, no, no, no, of course not! We're going to do Sangrita-and-Jesse type things. I'll just be dressed as a geisha the whole time."__

Jesse just shook her head and followed me back inside. "If that's what makes you happy. Where's everyone?"

I shrugged. "My parents are at work, my sister's at a friend's and I've just been hanging around all day doing opera-type stuff and college-type stuff." 

Jesse and I are both eighteen, both slightly insane and have a shared passion for Labyrinth and the Lord of the Rings. When the two of us shared the same space for any given amount of time, unusual stuff was said and done, and objects had a habit of disappearing, breaking, or being "improved upon, not to mention the startling amounts of slash fic that somehow cropped up.

And yet my parents still loved her. Strange.

"I hope you know how important our friendship is to me, now, Jesse, because I really need to learn this role and quickly."

"Is that a coffin in the living room?"

~*~*~*~*

"Gandalf," said Legolas quietly, "I believe that there is something amiss."  
  


The wizard looked about him at the other members of the Fellowship, all of them carrying on more or less normally (Merry and Pippin and occasionally Boromir and Aragorn contributing to the "less" part), no one seeming to worry about a thing. 

"Amiss, Master Elf? How amiss?"

The Elf only shrugged, narrowing his blue eyes in an attempt to concentrate on what exactly _was _hanging around at the back of his mind. Whatever it was, it wasn't something he was going to hit upon right away. He would wait for it to come to him.

"Not amiss, exactly," the prince amended. "More like something out of the ordinary. Something unnatural, but it hasn't happened…yet."

~*~*~*~*

Jesse was looking at me with an expression that seemed to be trying to make up its mind whether to say "I demand an explanation and I demand it _now_" or "OK, Sangrita's cracked, that's all there is to it, and I really don't want to know."

Guess which one won out?

"Hey…_is_ that a coffin?"

I nodded, feeling that damn wig slide forward a little, and attacked it with a few more bobby pins. "Yeah…that is definitely a coffin, and it is definitely in my living room."

She narrowed her hazel eyes at me, while I just shrugged innocently. This was an old routine.

"_Why_ is there a coffin in your living room?"

"Oh, well, that's easy to explain!" I assured her cheerfully, a bit more of my unnamed accent slipping forward in my voice. Don't ask how I ended up with it, either. No one in my family has one. Must be all that work in theatre. It sort of resembles Pippin's voice…but there's also something a little more American, and sometimes French. Don't know why; probably never will. Like most accents, though, it tends to invade my speech when I'm excited or upset, or just not paying too much attention.

"The coffin's in my living room because in addition to Butterfly, I'm in rehearsals for an operatic version of the Vampire Lestat. I'm playing Armand, and–"

"Wait a minute? Armand?"

"Yeah. Armand."

"That's a guy's name."

"So?"

She put her head to one side, again "assessing" me...something she's been doing for years with little success. 

"Last I checked, you only fell for tenors…you fail miserably to sing that low."

I clapped a melodramatic hand to my forehead, wrapping an arm about her shoulders as I did.

"Armand, my good lady, is a 400-year-old vampire made when he was a young boy. Not much taller than I am, red-haired and pretty like me, and sung by a soprano or a mezzo. Anyway, the coffin's here because we need a few of them for the show."

I liked having the coffin there. Jesse, on the other hand, just thought I was crazy.

"You're crazy. I knew it all along!"

"Oh come on," I said, rolling my eyes. "It's not that bad. Vampires have to have coffins. It's practically a prerequisite with the Vampire Homeowners Association! There's a lot of room. See?"  
  


I climbed in, lying down in traditional vampire fashion with my arms crossed over my chest (attack of the killer barely-legal geisha vampires!) and smiled up at her as innocently as I could.

"You're crazy!"

"Oh, just get in for a minute! Pleeeeeeeeease?"  
  


She hesitated for a moment, then gave in. No one can resist the chance to climb in a coffin…especially when said person is also a fan of Interview With the Vampire. Score about a million for Sangrita's forces of corruption!

"See is it that bad?" I tried to reassure her.

SLAM.

"Well, it is now that the lid's shut!"

I gave her my best derisive stare, which didn't really have the desired affect because she couldn't see me that well in the dark. I tried to reach up and push the lid open, but dropped back to the bottom of the thing when I felt a weird sort of sensation like the floor was dropping out from beneath me. 

"Oh, shit…"

"Rita! What the heck is happening?" I heard Jesse screaming painfully close to my ear.

"Ow! Shut up! I don't know what's happening!"

"When we get out of this, I'm going to–!"

I never found out what it was that she was going to do, because we both felt the coffin slam down again, and nearly killed each other in the process of getting out.

I'm sure that when we did get out it was pretty amusing, because our eyes were probably just was wide as those of the nine people looking back at us.

"I do _not_ believe this," I said slowly. "What about the operas?!"

"Rita, dear," Jesse said in a "soothing" tone. "We. Are. In. Middle. Freaking. Earth. Don't worry about the operas."

"But I was going to sing Cio-Cio-San and Armand! And I'm in Middle Earth in a freaking turn of the century geisha costume!"

(A/N: Hey, Jesse…see if you can top THAT!)


	2. The chapter that comes after the first o...

(A/N: Let it be known that I do not like coffins. Remotely. They are just creepy. This is in Jesse's POV now.)

When I went over to Rita's, I did not expect to get into a coffin. Or to travel to Middle Earth, for that matter. But let's focus on the coffin for a moment:

There is no way in hell I was going to get into that thing. None what-so-ever. So when Rita asked, I was very prepared to say no. Unfortunately, I forgot about one very important thing: I can deny Rita nothing. Damn it. So I got in. If you ignored that fact that it was indeed a very much coffin-like coffin, it almost wasn't so bad. With the top open. With the top closed, it was a totally different matter. And Rita said it wasn't so bad. Humph.

"Well, it is now that the lid's shut!" I screamed at her. I think it was in her ear, which I will apologize for at some point in the future, but not now, since I am stuck in a coffin with the lid shut and – shit. Why are we falling? I screamed at Rita again, and this time I know it was in her ear. I know because – well, that's not important, because I felt the need to threaten her at the moment. I didn't get to finish my threat, however, because we suddenly hit bottom. Really. We stopped. Dead in our tracks. Well, the coffin stopped dead in _it's_ tracks, we just were along for the ride.

The nine people who were staring at us when we got out were the last people I expected to see. For that matter, until that moment, I was sure that they were just characters in books/movies, not actual, real, breathing, living people. Obviously, I was wrong. I heard myself explaining, calmly I might add, to Rita where we were. I don't know how I pulled that off, because calm was the last thing I was feeling at the moment. I also heard her say something about an opera, but by that point I'd gone into shock and couldn't do anything but stare. And blink. And stare. And blink. And was that really a spider crawling up my leg? Yes, that was a spider. Ok. Spider? Not ok!

"Ahhhhh!!!!" I screamed, and jumped into the arms of the nearest Fellowship member, who happened to be Gandalf. I'm sure he thought I was insane.

That seemed to knock Rita into reality, or the lack there of, and she squealed, very much like we had last week when we saw Return of the King, and glomped onto Boromir. I followed her example, because really, he is Boromir. How do you not glomp? For the next half hour or so random insanity occurred, most of which is to confusing to relay to you, the reader, but a few things of which are noteworthy.

One, Gandalf gets cranky when you steal his staff. I will have to remember that for future reference.

Two, Rita is much stronger than she looks. Legolas learned this as she was "hugging" – I think it was more like squeezing the life out of – him.

Three, hobbits are really the most adorable things there are in Middle Earth. They are cute like puppies.

"Merry," Pippin whispered, "who are they?"

"They, Master Hobbit, are girls," Gandalf explained and held onto his hat so that Rita and I could not steal it.

"Girls?" Sam questioned, wondering if we might be in need of food because we were now prattling on about taters and what they were.

"Yes, girls, Samwise Gamgee," Rita told him.

"As in female," I added, just because I felt like it.

"They are odd girls," Merry whispered to Pippin. 

Gandalf made a throat clearing noise like he wanted everyone to shut up so he could talk, so we did. For two seconds.

"I wanna see the Ring!" I cried out, looking expectantly at Frodo. He clutched the Ring under his shirt and looked at Gandalf questioningly.

"Really, it's ok, I know about the quest. And I don't _want_ the Ring, I just wanna see it." I explained, and I think Sam was ready to attack me, because he had that "you're not touching Frodo as long as I'm around" look on his face. Which is totally adorable, so I hugged him instead.

Then suddenly, Rita screamed. We all looked to see what it was she was screaming at, but since we found nothing, we all stared at her until she decided to explain. "I was thinking about home," she explained. When that failed to change anything, she sighed. "I was remembering that time the pencil sharpener was trying to kill me."

I hugged her and muttered, "Evil pencil sharpener."

Gandalf had had enough. "That's enough," he told us. We pouted and looked innocent.

Aragorn came to our rescue. "Gandalf, I think they're just excited."

"Quite," Boromir agreed.

"I think the first thing we should do is find them some suitable clothes," Legolas added.

So that's what we did, and then we explored Rivendell, for that's where we were. Then Merry, Pippin, Sam, Rita, and I all hid in the bushes and listened to the secret council. Heeheehee, we are so sneaky.

"Doom, Mordor," Rita kept muttering beside me every time Elrond said either of those two things. I kept snickering, because it was really very funny. Merry and Pippin and Sam all looked like they were paying attention to what was going on. Well, Merry and Sam did. Pippin was giggling with me. We [as in Rita and myself] were so busy giggling that we almost missed the next thing Elrond had to say:

"Nine companions. You shall be the Fellowship of the Ring."

It was then that we realized the Hobbits had run out already, and we had missed our que. So we ran out, somewhat late, but still there.

Gandalf looked desperate and Elrond looked surprised.

"Right then," I turned to the Fellowship. "Let's get underway, troops!"

~*~

Three months later, we had left.


	3. I saw three ships

A/N: Why did the Fellowship take so long to leave Rivendell? They waited two months. And Frodo waited about seventeen years before he even thought about setting out on the quest. Jeez…talk about giving the eyeball an advantage. Third chapter, Sangrita's POV! (PS…see if you can pick up the vague allusion to the movie _Chicago_.)

After trading in the geisha clothes for some Elvish dresses that were much easier to wear, I was definitely starting to see the perks of Middle Earth. 

No more family, no more work, no more commuting to San Francisco to go the Conservatory…just Elves and Men as far as the eye could see, and I know my eyes were enjoying all of it. There were a few dwarves, too, but I liked them, even though they weren't ogling material.

Had it been October when we first arrived in Rivendell? That's when they'd held the Council (and when I had hidden in the bushes whispering "Doom…Mordor…_more_ doom…God, this is fun!" to an amused Jesse, Pippin, Merry and Sam). 

About that Council…there had been a _very_ near miss concerning my dearest Jesse when Elrond was going off on his Doomsday prophet shtick: He would be right at home on a San Francisco street corner holding a sign about the end of the world and bellowing at the top of his lungs that all the world was going to slide into the ocean like a plate of clams…or at least that California would, since that's where he would happen to be at the time. Fortunately for San Francisco, he hadn't gotten there yet.

No doubt he would figure out how, someday…maybe take the next coffin over? And then we would all go to Hell in a handbasket.  (Or a fast car.)

Anyway, Jesse, not being a cynic like some redheads I could name, had gotten a little tired of this act. As he stood before our Fellowship of eleven preaching our doom even after he had named us, she decided she was going to let him know. Not smart, but what can you do? 

"Lord Elrond!" She reprimanded him "I cannot believe that you're sending all these cute little Hobbits off to their doom without even a word of comfort! It's not gonna be that bad! You're just a big poop–!"

I sang an insanely loud high C to drown her out immediately, and then while she was wincing, I clapped a hand over her mouth and turned to face Elrond.

"Forgive her, my Lord!" I cried out dramatically. "She knows not what she does…ow!"  
  


Little bint had bitten me. Skinny bint is always _so _polite…very nice friend!

"YOU'RE JUST A BIG *POOPYPANTS!*"

Oh. My. God.  My life sucks, and this is the reason why. Did I say earlier that she was eighteen? Maybe I did, but I was starting to disbelieve it. Eight, maybe…but at the going rate, even that was a stretch.   
  


Pippin, Gimli and Merry found it hilarious, but Sam and Frodo were looking agog and aghast, and I couldn't blame them. Aragorn and Boromir were both exchanging a look, but wisely keeping their mouths shut, and I have no doubt that, if given the chance, Gandalf and Legolas (and undoubtedly Elrond himself) would have ripped her head off and given it to Elladan and Elrohir to mount on the wall.

"Jessica," I hissed at her between my teeth, "If the entire Fellowship ends up condemned and never receives any help from this end, I will know exactly why, and I will kill you. Fair?"

She blinked her eyes at me and gave me an innocent smile. "But he was being so meannnnn…"

Damn! She can get away with _any_thing. At least she didn't call him a "flatulent pain in the ass" a la The Smiths. Oi.

"Frodo," I could hear Gandalf whispering, "if you ever write this all into your uncle Bilbo's accounts…leave _them_ out of it!"

~*~*~*~*~

So that was an October Fellowship-forming memory. Not a particularly good one, albeit hilarious, but a memory nonetheless.   
  
A memory from October.

So I would have been grateful for an explanation as to why we didn't leave for Mordor until what would have been Christmas Day (or whatever you celebrate on 25 December) back at home. I didn't really understand why Elrond had let us hang around for so long, especially considering that Gimli and Jesse had both managed to insult him or his kind on their very first day in Imladris. 

I cannot believe that one of my favorite people called one of my favorite Elves a poopypants, but there you are.

For some reason, though, he let us stay on another two months, and didn't even seem to mind _my_ being there, although he gave his twin sons free rein to shoot at Jesse to practice their aim for when they went on another quest to rid Middle Earth of every last Orc. At least he liked me! I could give a few reasons for that, too, but Jesse would undoubtedly kill me and then commit me, so I won't.

Nice vacation spot that Imladris was, I was still just a little anxious to get the Ring on the road to Mordor, but we had to wait for Frodo to make a full recovery, or something like. So it came to pass that on Christmas morning, I had had enough, and was ready to convince them all, in my own clever way, that it was time to get a move on:

"I SAW THREE SHIPS COME SAILING IN ON CHRISTMAS DAY, ON CHRISTMAS DAY! I SAW THREE SHIPS COME SAILING IN ON CHRISTMAS DAY INTO **MORDOR!"**

"What _is_ that caterwauling?" I could hear Gandalf grumbling. Aragorn answered him: "I don't know, but I'm willing to bet that it comes from either one of the two stragglers we picked up."

"If it is Jessica," Boromir continued, "Elrond will undoubtedly kill her." 

"Let's not get our hopes up," Gandalf grumbled again. He tended to do a lot of that lately.

I continued "singing" (and undoubtedly ruining my voice) making up some lyrics about how all the Fellowship was there, and Smeagol, and the Ring, and also some Orcs…until I was hit around the shins by the handle of Gimli's axe.

"And you thought that _I_ was bad?" Jesse demanded.

I shrugged. "Hey, I'm always the intelligent one. I get to act like a kid, too, sometimes…and this is _interpretive Christmas caroling._ It's a new art form."

Nine other pairs of eyes met mine, each one looking a little more frightened and a little more long-suffering than the last.

"So, are we ready to get a move on…finally?" I asked Gandalf.

"If it will shut you up, I will do _anything_." 

A/N: And what was in those ships all three? The Fellowship and two extra girls and Smeagol and the Ring and some random Orcs! Take it, Jesse!


	4. Evil Flying Sticks

(A/N: Back in Jesse's POV.)

In my defense, Elrond was being very depressive and un-motivating. Although, I could have said it better. My inner child is five, you see, and she has a tendency to take over my mouth at the worst times. At least we all made it out of Rivendell alive.

So, we'd left Rivendell a week ago and were crossing through grassland to some woods we were going to camp in for the night. Rita and I were skipping around hand-in-hand (a random little girl and her mother popped in and the little girl asked her mother why we were holding hands) singing,

"We're following the leader, the leader, the leader, we're following the leader, wherever he may go!" from the Disney movie Peter Pan. It's a fun song to sing, really.

Gandalf was looking amused in a very annoyed way, Legolas, Aragorn, and Boromir seemed to be doing their best not to pay attention to us, Gimli watched us muttering,

"A dwarf does not sing," since we'd been pestering him to sing with us for the better part of the last hour, and the four hobbits were clearly amused by our burst of song. Pippin wanted to know where we'd learned it when a flying stick decided to attack me.

"Ah!" I screamed as the Evil Flying Stick flew past me and buried itself in the ground. Everyone turned to look at it, and before we could do anything another Evil Flying Stick flew through the air and speared Gandalf's hat before burring itself in the ground.

"Attack!" Boromir yelled, and we all started running towards the woods. (Gandalf had retrieved his hat, which now had a small hole in it, from the Second Evil Flying Stick.)

Gandalf led the way, followed by Aragorn, then Rita and I, the hobbits, Boromir, and Gimli. Legolas brought up the rear shooting arrows in the direction the Evil Flying Stick arrows were coming from. 

We reached the woods, the warrior-like members of the Fellowship forming a circle around the hobbits, Rita, and I, who were less skilled with weapons than they. (Rita and I were not at all skilled with weapons, which I then realized put us at a great disadvantage.) The Evil Flying Stick arrows could no longer reach us, but sadly for our Fellowship we were far from safe as of the moment.

There were stomping feet noises coming towards us that were very Orc-like. So we had Orcs coming after us in the woods when two members are very much not prepared for this kind of encounter. Oh great. Except, they weren't Orcs, because Orcs don't come out in daytime; they have sunlight issues. So we had Orc-like creatures stomping toward us. Legolas continued shooting off arrows and we heard evil "I'm in pain" screams every time another arrow was let loose, so we knew he was hitting something.

But he couldn't hit all of them before they got to us, and unless there was some miracle, Rita and I couldn't lift a sword between us. Lovely. The hobbits had drawn their swords, and I was beginning to feel useless. I wasn't sure about Rita, so I decided to ask.

"I'm feeling useless. Are you?"

"Yes," Rita told me. "Should we do something?"

"What can we do?" I asked.

"Something that is Rita and Jesse-ish," she replied, and I smiled.

"Yes, lets," I agreed, and the first Orc-like thing showed it's wrinkle-cream challenged face. I walked up to it and it stopped in it's tracks and looked at me like I was strange. "You know," I said to it, "you could really use some face cream. But just because you don't have face cream, that's no reason to join with an evil eye who has a lack of Clear Eyes and try to kill all the good-guys."

The rest of the Fellowship (minus Rita, who was used to me doing things like this) looked shocked and amazed. The Orc-creature growled and I think was going to attack me had Legolas not shot it at that moment.

Then it all let loose, the Fellowship members killing large numbers of our attackers as Rita and I huddled together, wondering when someone (preferably one of the good-guys) was going to notice us. Legolas and Boromir did.

"Lady Rita, Lady Jessica," Boromir said urgently, "do not fear, we shall let no harm befall you."

I nearly swooned, and I think Rita did too. Legolas let loose another arrow before speaking.

"Lady Rita, come with me," he pulled Rita with him to the safety of a place where he could protect her. I missed my Rita, but was quickly whisked away by Boromir to a place where he could protect me. So we were being protected by some of the oogling-worthy members of the Fellowship and the Orc-like creatures were beginning to hesitate before rushing to their death. So it looked like we were going to get out of this alive.

(A/N: Are we Rita??)


	5. Screw Mary Sues

(A/N: Lol! Silly Jesse. And of course we're going to get out of it alive…otherwise there would be no collab! Sorry if I killed the suspense there. ~*Sangrita's POV*~)

I. Do. Not. Like. Orcs.

Nor do I like random Orc~like creatures…_especially _when they're not supposed to be there.

"Jesse!" I yelled to my friend as we were separated, much in the way Pippin says "Merry!" I was just a _little_ upset at the Uruk~Hai being there, and the accent was starting to make itself known. "Jesse! Those aren't supposed to be here!"

I didn't know what good it would do, but I decided to remind the Uruk~Hai of that, too.

"You guys! Go back! You're not supposed to be here yet! Are you crazy? Is Saruman an idiot? Never mind! Don't answer that! This is **not** Amon~Hen! And if you point one arrow in the general vicinity I will personally–!"

"With all due respect, milady," Legolas cut in, sounding a little irked, "I do not think that you are helping anything…or is this how you deal with such events where you come from?"

Yep. Captain Obvious, all right. Of course I wasn't helping anything! I'm a soprano, not a fighter…or something like that. I'm scared of war. I go to protests. And he expects me to know how to deal with these…things? He should just be glad that I wasn't petrified with fear, babbling incoherently. At least my mind was still functioning, and it was telling me one thing: I was glad that I had gotten some proper travel clothes in Imladris, because it would have been **really** ridiculous to have died in my geisha costume.

I hoped Jesse was having an easier time of it than I was.

~*~

"So you see, just because you're a little rough around the edges and kinda short on face cream doesn't mean you have to team up with a wizard who only looks after his own appearance and a flaming eyeball, understand?" She was explaining to some rather confused~looking Uruk~Hai…who then decided to keep on attacking her and Boromir, anyway. 

Diplomacy is dead.

~*~

"Thank God I've read the books," I chanted to myself over and over. "Thank God I've read the books…I know how this ends, and Legolas doesn't killed, which means I don't…but Jesse and I were cut out of it, along with the rest of the fan girls! And this **didn't happen in the books OR the movie**!"

 Then, I slapped myself in the face for being a squealing idiot. So there were Uruk~Hai. So they weren't supposed to be there. I wasn't supposed to be there, either, and neither was Jesse. I could act like an idiot, or I could try to help. Taking my cue from Sarah (or Ludo) in _Labyrinth_ I picked up some rocks and started throwing them in the general direction of the Uruk~Hai, wondering if Jesse was off with Boromir doing the same thing. Or maybe she was throwing face cream.

Did she even **have** face cream with her? It was all most of us could do to find a stream to take a bath in, for God's sake.

Anyway, I didn't have face cream, but I had rocks, and I was throwing them. My aim wasn't as precise as Legolas's but once in awhile I would hit one in the face or something. Not bad, considering that I am **not** a physical person. Even if Jesse and I were only slightly useful, the Fellowship hadn't forgotten how to fight and were able to get rid of most of the Uruk~Hai without any serious damage to our company.

"Is that it?" Jesse asked.

I elbowed her "gently" in the ribs. What did she mean _is that it_? Did she want **more**?

"I meant," she continued, shooting me the famous "I-am-Jesse-and-you-have-crossed-me" look, "Is it over?"

Much better.

"It will not be over, milady, until the Ring has been destroyed," Gandalf commented, as optimistic as ever.

"But it is over for now," Aragorn assured us. At least **someone** had the right idea of how to talk to two girls experiencing culture-clashes and battles.

Still a little shaken, I grabbed Jesse by the hand, cueing the same little girl and her mother to walk by and stare at us **again**, and pulled her off to the side for a conference.

"That was scary," I stated unnecessarily. "Really scary. I hope it doesn't happen again. Is it going to happen again? Wait…of course it is!" 

She nodded. "Yeah, but this time at Amon-Hen we're not gonna let Boromir die."  
  


"Of course not!" I was appalled, first by the thought of Boromir dying and then by something else. "Wait a minute, Dearest Jess…if we save Boromir, would that make us eligible to be card-carrying members of the Mary-Sue Fanfic Guild?"

"It would be worth it!"

I made a face at her. "Is it ever worth it?"

"It is for Boromir!"

Point taken. Point taken right away, no assurance needed. The Mary-Sue thing still continued to bother me though, especially as I like to be someone who stands out in a **good** way.

"It would be a disaster if we were Mary-Sues, though" I fretted. "I mean, to a degree we already are, dropping in on them like this. And we really picked a bad time to want to come to Middle Earth…"  
  


"Screw Mary-Sues! **I am not letting _my_ Boromir die!**"

Jesse was apparently resolved on the matter.

"Okay, okay," I said. "Jeez…I guess it doesn't really matter. A thousand-plus people have already screwed up the plot line, anyway."

~*~*~*

"So what are we going to do with them, then?" Gimli asked the rest of the Fellowship. "We cannot be expected to bring two females along with us!"

"I think we could!" Pippin returned, but a look from Gandalf quieted him pretty quickly. 

"You are to keep your eyes on the watch for Nazgul and Orcs, Peregrin Took," the wizard admonished, "and not for pretty new friends."

"At least they can make themselves useful, after a fashion," Boromir said, "even if they have strange ways of going about it." No doubt he was recalling Jesse's attempt to give the Uruk~Hai a talking~to. 

They all sat in silence for a moment, until Legolas realized something and got an evil little smile on his face.

"We'll be passing through Lothlorien, if I am correct. Why not let the Marchwarden Haldir deal with them there? If he finds them fit, there shan't be a problem. If he doesn't, then we decide what to do with them."

(A/N: Yes! Let Haldir deal with us! :-D And guess who just got miraculously cast as a geisha in Madama Butterfly?  Your turn, Jesse!)


	6. No Title It is titleless

"So what are we going to do with them, then?" Gimli asked the rest of the Fellowship. "We cannot be expected to bring two females along with us!"

_Not saying anything, not saying anything…_ I chanted to myself. One thing you have to understand about me is that I am very pro-women's rights, and the way Gimli said "females" was really irking me.

"I think we could!" Pippin returned, but a look from Gandalf quieted him pretty quickly. 

Well, at least someone loves me.

"You are to keep your eyes on the watch for Nazgul and Orcs, Peregrin Took," the wizard admonished, "and not for pretty new friends."

Good news: Gandalf has acknowledged my pretty-ness. Oh yeah, and Rita's… Bad news: He was agreeing with Gimli.

"At least they can make themselves useful, after a fashion," Boromir said, "even if they have strange ways of going about it." No doubt he was recalling Jesse's attempt to give the Uruk~Hai a talking~to.

Swoon. Boromir thinks I'm useful. Swoon. What was I upset about? 

They all sat in silence for a moment, until Legolas realized something and got an evil little smile on his face.

"We'll be passing through Lothlorien, if I am correct. Why not let the Marchwarden Haldir deal with them there? If he finds them fit, there shan't be a problem. If he doesn't, then we decide what to do with them."

Oh yeah, being kicked out of the Fellowship because I'm a woman and they think I'm useless. I didn't know about Rita, because with her Haldir fetish who _knew what she would decide to do, but there was no way I was going to be left behind. Plus, if I were left in Lothlorien I'd be unable to save my precious Boromir, and I am going to do that, regardless how much that may qualify me to join the Mary-Sue club._

A note on said Mary-Sues: I hate them and think they should all die a horrible and painful death, with the exception of the Mary-Sue Rita wrote for the Eye. And I in no way want to be a Mary-Sue. But for my Boromir, I will become one if that is what it takes. I would also like to know when the last time a Mary-Sue called Elrond a "Poopypants" (I'll never get over that) or started yelling at Orcs about face-cream was. Both of which I've done, so there. Not a Mary-Sue. And I had a plan.

"Rita," said I, "I have a plan!"

"A plan?" She looked at me and we stopped listening to the conversation about our futures to hear my plan.

"Yes, a PLAN." I repeated. "They think we are not useful." I frowned and pouted out my lip. "And since this is Middle Earth, we have to prove to them we *are* useful." Ok, now she had that look. "Not *that* way! We shall become masters of weaponry, and then we wont have to hide when Orcs attack and AND we'll be able to save Boromir." I was about to continue when a thought struck me, and it was such a thought that I became very distressed. Rita recognized my distressed face immediately.

"What's wrong?" she asked, for Rita loves and cares for me.

"Rita, if we're going to save Boromir, should we save Gandalf too? Or is it ok to let him die in Moria because he'll come back more powerful? Or can we save him and he'll still be more powerful? Or does he have to die and come back to be more powerful? And is it really ok to be altering the plot line? Are we really allowed to save _anyone? What if-,"_

"Jessi," Rita took hold of my shoulders. "Breathe."

I took a deep breath.

"The plot line has already been shot to hell," Rita told me. "We and every other crazy fan-girl have showed up in Middle Earth and killed the plot. Besides, we have to save Boromir. He is Boromir."

Don't ask me why that made sense, but it did. Perhaps it is because I'm usually the one saying things like that, or maybe it was because we've been inseparable for so long. At any rate, I did, and I was calm (not clam) once again. "Yes, you are right. Now we must do what every other fan-girl to come to Middle Earth has done: learn weapons."

"Yes." Rita agreed. I nodded. She nodded. I smiled and nodded. She smiled and nodded. I looked determined. She looked determined. I- well, you get the idea.

"Then it is decided," announced Gandalf and the Fellowship (minus those who had not been at the meeting to decide the future of Rita and myself) stood.

What was decided? What had I missed? "What's decided?" I asked with the cutest pout I could manage. Rita jutted out her bottom lip, struck a pose, and batted her eyes.

Gandalf rolled his eyes and started marching again, and just like that, we were off.

~*~*~*~

Well, I'd say we were off to a good start. At the moment we were resting on a rocky outcrop. Sam and Frodo were cooking food (it was time for Afternoon Tea), Rita was being instructed by Legolas how to shoot an arrow straight (the Fellowship had really taken to the idea of Rita and I learning how to fight, I was rather pleased), Pippin, Merry, and I were taking turns attacking Boromir with our swords (mine was shiny, ooohhh…), and Gandalf, Aragorn, and Gimli were watching in amusement. Ha, let them try to dump me with some scary elf queen now.

"One, two, good," said Boromir to one of the hobbits. I was now watching Rita shoot off her seventh straight arrow in a row, which had stuck itself in a tree that was being used as a target. Legolas looked pleased, and Rita and I hugged each other. Life in Middle Earth was good.

~*~*~*~

Across many meters of earth, Saruman was watching us from afar through the eyes of his winged spies. (Of course, all this was unbeknownst to us at the time.) "So, you have brought two foolish maidens with you on your quest, Gandalf the Gray." He mused to himself while inspecting his newly manicured nails. "What would you do if harm should befall them?" he chuckled evilly to himself.

(Hahahahaha, it is done! Well, not done, but this chapter, written by me, is. Hurrah.)


	7. Vegetarian Exceptions

A/N: This is me, Sangrita! First I was very busy with Madama Butterfly (we just opened on March 13!) and then my Internet decided not to work, but now I have time to write and I am back with a vengeance! And, just to let you all know how much I love you: I'm *supposed* to be vocalising right now, but I'm putting it off.

You probably don't want to have to actually READ through all this crap I'm writing now (Where's the story she promised?! I wamt her BLOOD!"), so, without further ado...

CHAPTER SEVEN.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I could not believe I was actually learning to shoot an arrow properly, and actually succeeding! This alone HAD to mean that there were strange forces at work, because I spectacularly failed high school PE (except for swimming and dance), and can list for you, right now, five of the most strenusous things I have ever done:

1. Ballet

2. Belly-dance.

3. Swim team (quit when I realized my shoulders and thighs  would get too broad if I kept it up: I already think there's been irreparable damage).

4. Any and all dance auditions for musicals

5. Learning how to walk/kneel/get back off the ground in kimono (It's harder than it sounds, especially that last part. ESPECIALLY after your costumer has practically tied your knees together with your koshimaki and underrobe).

Nothing to do with shooting arrows had ever come close to me, except for the one time I watched some archers at RenFaire. The extent of my ability in that department was occasionally throwing a football or frisbee for a child, and now I was shooting arrows that actually flew more or less where they were supposed to go!

Okay, there were some close calls, and I can't pretend I hit a bull's-eye everytime (well, I can, but I won't. The Mary-Sues guild would be begging me to be president), but it was really kind of uplifting. And Jesse...I was so proud of her. Not only could she lift the sword, but she could swing it! Not always skillfully enough, but we were making progress. 

Unsure of how to thank Legolas for his help, I put my hands together and bowed in the Japanese fashion. The Elves reminded me so much of Shintoists that I figured the gesture would be appreciated. 

"I owe you one, Legolas," I told him gratefully. "If you ever need a favor, let me know."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

NEVER tell a prince you owe him a favor. I ended up polishing and restringing his bow, gathering materials for new arrows, mending a tear in his tunic, buffing his boots, writing a letter of grievance to someone in Lothlorien as he dictated it, and doing some minor psychological tweaking. 

"Is this worth learning to shoot an arrow for?" I grumbled to Jesse, as Legolas told me some more about his childhood. I understood that being fourth in line for the throne out of four immortal sons of one immortal king could be frustrating and make one feel rather worthless in the long run, but this was getting a bit out of hand, considering that if he was around 2931, as all the fangirls claimed, I had 2920 years of his life left to listen to. "My ears are falling off! I'm going to make him cut his off and give them to me as my workman's comp."

"That's enough, Legolas," Jesse told him firmly. "She'll be here all day if you keep up with that. Besides, Sam made food for us."

Yes, Sam had definitely made food: "tomatoes, sausages and nice crispy bacon", all of it a very difficult diet for a vegetarian like myself. Man (and diva) cannot live by tomatoes alone, and even if I could, I wouldn't want to try. For the next half-hour, I became very well acquainted with the Middle Earth topsoil as I scrounged around for mushrooms, and then remembered I couldn't eat the mushrooms because I would probably poison myself and die. Tomatoes it was.

"Do you think that they're vegetarians in Lothlorien?" I mused to Aragorn. "Because if they're not, I'm going to have a serious problem staying ali---"

"You know, child, you could just eat what you've been given," he suggested, looking a little bemused by the fact that I was only eating three tomatoes while everyone else got a full meal, the lucky bastards.

"She won't touch meat," Jesse said cheerfully, waving a sausage in my face. "I don't see why you're trying to get her to. More for us!"

"Why are we best friends again?" I teased in a sulky tone, rolling my eyes.

"Because you love meeeeee."

"I do not."

"Yes you do," she insisted, batting her eyelashes and moving closer to the seriously uncomfortable rock I was sitting on.

"Fine! I love you, but I have no idea why." 

Satsified, she picked up her sword again, begging Boromir to instruct her and the troublesome Merry/Pip duo further in the time-honored art of swordplay. Actually, she probably just wanted to tackle him to the ground, but who am I to judge? I would do the same in a heartbeat.

Just maybe, I thought, this saving Middle Earth gig wouldn't be so bad, aside from the fact that I had never been in a huge world war before and wouldn't even get credit in the novels. When you're me, though, a good thing is often interrupted by something out of the blue and, in this case, oddly disturbing.

None of us, except for Legolas (which goes without saying, obviously: even fangirls who drop into Middle Earth for a spot o' tea, or tomato, as the case may be, have not got and never will have Elven eyesight) had time to register the bizarre black cloud coming upon us, until it really WAS right on top of us, and our esteemed Seeing Eye Elf chose that moment to declare the presence of Crebain from Dunland, and that it might be a good idea to hide.

Jesse was shepherded by Boromir into a cozy hiding place, occupied by herself, himself and a couple of the more troublesome Hobbits. Interesting that Boromir feels obligated to look out for "the little ones", because she's two inches taller than I am, and I ended up making myself as small as possible and hiding behind Gimli. He, after all, had the big axe. Strangely enough, though, the blackbird invasion (I suspect Paul McCartney had something to do with this little turn of events) was over almost as soon as it had begun, or that was what we thought.

Have you ever heard someone say "If I knew then what I know now..."?

Yeah. It's like that. Two random girls coming into Middle Earth do, after all, seriously disturb things. Naturally, Saruman, who delights in further disturbing the already seriously disturbed, would take an interest. Thus, Jesse and I would later discover that a crebain "spy" in each of our traveling packs would be the source of some problems down the road.

It's enough to make a girl rethink becoming a vegetarian. Those things should all be baked into pies.

(A/N: Take it, Miss Butterfly! Take us to Isengard! Or something...because I don't know what I'm doing. I'm in post-opera slump).


	8. Plotlessness

(A/N: To my dearest Rita, welcome back. To my dearest Rita's internet connection, I slap you with my white glove. And now on to the story.)

Snuggled up with Boromir as I was, the stupid blackbirds were the last thing on my mind. In fact, I was at that moment thinking of thanking them, but I then remembered that they are working with the bad guy. So I didn't. And the snuggling ended far too soon.

Then again, I don't know if you can call it snuggling when you have Hobbits (which are at other times quite adorable) spooning in on your snuggling time. I love the little Hobbits, but really. Can't I get just one moment of quality snuggling? Apparently not. Sigh.

"The road … will be blocked for us. We must…" I heard Gandalf saying, but I wasn't really paying too much attention. After all, I knew where we were going. I knew what was going to happen, and I was dreading it very much.

Then I heard Gimli start talking.

"No!" I yelled. "No, no, no, no. No Moria. Moria bad." I said firmly, and I think that for once Gandalf was glad of my presence. I was again happy. And so we started off to the big snowy mountain.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"My bag is heavy," I told Rita. "It feels like I'm carrying one of my cats." My cats, as you, the reader, probably do not know, are fat little piggies that I spoil rotten.

"Mine too. I think Oberon followed us." Rita agreed. Oberon is her fat, adorable kitty that we all love.

The rest of the group was making camp, so Rita and I sat down in the grass with a "wumph." The stars were very pretty and nice, but I was more interested in Rita's bag.

"Oh Oberon," I cooed, pulling her bag onto my lap. "C'mere sweetie." I opened the bag. But it was not Oberon. "Yahhhh!!" I screamed, pushing the bag away from me and jumping up. One of the Crebain flew out of the bag swaking like a madman.

Immediately the Fellowship jumped up and the Crebain flew away, running for its life. Before even Legolas could fit an arrow to his bow, it was gone. Everyone looked around severely.

I think Rita and I were about to get into vast amounts of trouble, but I'll never really know for sure, because at that moment my bag began to move. Well, hop it more like it. Or at least it looked like it was _trying_ to hop.

"What is that?" I asked wearily. Most of the things I though I knew had been thrown out the window by now, but I was still fairly sure that bags to not move on their own.

"Pease tell me that this is some magick, Gandalf," Rita muttered.

"This is no magick of mine," Gandalf replied, and he opened the bag with the end of his staff. Another Crebain flew out and chased after his little friend.

"Damn," I muttered to Rita. "We're writing this, and we _still_ didn't see this coming?"

"Jesse, it's inevitable." Rita told me and patted me on the shoulder. "I think this is what they call no plot."

"Really?" I asked. Of course, I've _heard_ of no-plot stories, but this was the first time I'd actually been in one. "Wow."

"What are you two rambling about?" Gandalf snapped at us.

"Nothing," we chorused. We couldn't let them know this was _our_ fault. They already suspected that anyway.

Gandalf gave us the evil eye and went back to strategizing with the rest of the Fellowship.

"Hey Rita," I said, poking her in the arm.

"Yeah?"

"It's night, right?"

"Yeah."

"So orcs can come out, right?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think those ugly things over there could be orcs?" I was pointing to two ugly heads poking out of the bushes.

"Ahh!!" we both screamed as the orcs grabbed us.

The Fellowship looked over in time to see us being dragged off by orcs.

"We have to go after them?"

"Yes."

"Ok then. Let's go."

And the Fellowship started after us.


	9. You can't spell homemaker without Sangri...

A/N: I know, I've been bad. I should have written this chapter long ago. I plead guilty on charges of preparing for a string of auditions.

Merry and Pippin had not looked so helpless as Jesse and I did in our current state: slung over the backs of two very ungentlemanly "Orcses". Maybe it was the fact that those two had seemed pretty much unconscious, whilst Jesse and I hadn't been roughed up at all, and were still very much wide awake and incredibly nervous.

"I don't think it was Oberon," Jesse finally ventured, giving me a sideways glance.

I was trying very hard to be angry. Incredibly hard. I would have liked nothing better than to be seething with rage at her at that very moment, and to be able to hold a grudge for YEARS on the grounds that I had been captured.

Alas, she is my best friend for a reason. We need each other and all that. Unfortunately for my better judgment, I respect that.

"Oh," I finally said sarcastically. "That explains the flapping."

Flashback to the little girl in Kill Bill Vol. II: "He was flapping, and then I put my foot on him, and he wasn't flapping anymore."

I SHOULD HAVE PUT MY FOOT ON ONE OF THOSE CREBAIN.

"I didn't say this could happen," she was muttering.

"Sorry?" 

"I said I didn't say this could happen! When I'm president, I'm not going to allow this."

"Jesse," I said scornfully, "when you're president, I will **still** spit on you during vocal coaching."

"That wasn't my fault. And neither is this."  
  


"It **was** your fault! And as for this… you're the one who let it out of the bag. Someone up there really hates us both."

Uneasily, we both scanned the skies. It would have been just our luck for a vagrant pigeon to be flying overhead. Nasty little things, pigeons. 

"So, they're taking us where?" She wondered. "Hey, orc! Orc! Orcorcorcorcorcorcorcorcorc!"

The…Thing…that was carrying her whipped around and snarled right in her face. Undaunted, she continued: "Where're we going?"

"Isengard!" It growled back. "And BE SILENT."

I perked a little. Actually, I perked a lot. Isengard looked like a nice vacation spot: Beautiful grounds and surroundings, trees in bloom, obsidian citadel, Gothic architecture, fully furnished…maybe Saruman would lease the place. 

Hell, I was more than a match for Saruman! I had a feeling he had never before encountered a redheaded soprano with a bombastic temper, and would never want to again after running across myself and my slave…I mean friend!

"Isengard!" I thrilled. "Jessica, we're going to ISENGARD! This is perfect! Remember, I said we should move there…Mr. Manicure won't know what hit him!"

Suddenly triumphant, I spurred on the Orc that was giving me a bareback lesson with my heels. 

"Hurry UP, Thing! I need to start writing out the housewarming invitations!"

A/N: At least now we know where we're going. You  take the reins, my lovely mezzo-in-training!


	10. Yes, you can, but that's not the point

(A/N: Yes, I know, bad me. You may all hit me with sticks if you like. My writing bug wasn't biting and I've been busy. And yet still extremely bored. Don't ask. Anyway, this is back in Jesse's POV. In case you were wondering, R is for Rita, J is for Jessica, and S is for Saruman. [Your powers of deduction amaze me, really they do.])

Why is everything always _my_ fault? Ok, yes, I did let the first Crebain out of Rita's back, but how was I supposed to know that's what it was? I thought it was Oberon, not some evil pretty-boy's spy. Sessh. Anyway, at least Isengard wasn't really that bad. I mean, yeah, there's an evil wizard living there who could probably kill us, but he's never come up against me and Rita. So I wasn't all that worried. Except about getting Rita out of there. We did, after all, have a job to do with the Fellowship.

Nope, he was no match for us.

R: "And this room will be red, and we can have a big chandelier-,"

J: "Like in Beauty and the Beast!"

R: "-and lots of candles that smell good and-,"

S: "I am Saruman the White! You will listen to me!"

J: "-and lots of comfy bean bag chairs and swishy pillows!"

R: "Yes!"

I actually felt kind of bad for Saruman. Here we are in his house and we're already taking over and planning our painting. But then again, he was the bad guy, and he _had_ sent those stupid orcs after us in the first place. So maybe I wasn't feeling so bad.

R: "And we can splatter paint the bath tub!"

J: "Yes!"

"Are you listening to me?!" Saruman demanded.

"No," Rita and I said together.

"We can make it like the apartment in-,"

"HEY!!!"

We both turned to look at a very peeved Saruman. His hair wasn't so straight any more and one eye was twitching. I thought it was pretty damn funny looking.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" Rita asked him in an I'm-just-so-terribly-cute voice.

I think Saruman was about to crack. I really, really think that his head would have exploded if at that moment, the orc hadn't walked in with good news.

"My lord, your manicure and facial are ready."

Saruman was rubbing his temples. "Excellent." And he swept out of the room, completely forgetting about the two girls (us) who were taking over.

We looked after him, and the orc, not knowing what to do, stood and stared at us.

"I want a manicure and facial!" Rita protested. I looked down at my hands. They needed some serious work, and I didn't even want to know what my pores looked like at that moment. I had an idea.

"What about our manicures and facials?" I asked the orc. He looked at me stupidly. Orcs, you see, are not all that smart.

"You didn't FORGET, did you?" The orc didn't know what to say. "Oooh, you're going to be is so much trouble!"

"No, no, of course I didn't forget, uh, er, follow me…" And so we got manicures and facials. Score about ten millions for my powers of manipulation. Hahahaha!

"Ah, this is the life," Rita commented. We were lying back on comfy chairs, a citrus-y cream on our faces, cucumbers over our eyes, and each hand being manicured to perfection by some orcs in nurses clothes.

"Yep," I agreed. A girl could get used to this. And who knew orcs knew how to give manicures? They are full of surprises. But there was still the matter of escaping.

"Rita, shh!" I scolded as we pushed open the doors to Saruman's stables.

"Why are we here again?"

I sighed. "So we can escape and get back to the Fellowship and save Boromir."

"I mean, why are we sneaking into the stables?"

"For a horse."

"I can't ride a horse!"

"That's why we're only getting one horse. I'll drive, you just hang on."

"Ok," Rita agreed. It had taken most of the day to persuade her to leave Isengard, but in the end Boromir's life at stake won out.

"Are you sure you can ride well enough?" She asked as I tacked up the horse. Haha, making my parents pay large amounts of money for horseback riding lessons has finally paid off.

"You got a better plan?"

"We could just stay here."

I gave her my look.

"Ok fine," she mumbled. I helped her get on the horse and led it out into what was once Saruman's garden. I got on (with difficulty, as I've never had someone sitting in back of me while riding) and kicked the horse.

I'd named him Luxemburg. Anyway, he was a good horse and off we went. I just hoped we were going in the right direction…

"Tell me why I agreed to this again?" Rita asked after we'd gone for about two minutes.

J: "Because you owe me."

R: "I do not! What do I owe you for?!"

I turned around to look at her. "You cheated on me!"

R: "I did not!"

J: "You did too!"

R: "I didn't! We haven't even written the story yet!"

J: "Well we should."

R: "Yes, we should, and it can be all tragic. And I can die. I love killing off my characters."

J: "You're very strange."

R: "But you _luurrrve_ me anyway."

J: "Shut up."


End file.
